The intent here is to flesh out and provide the background of what the smear is all about. I want to point out the very obvious motivations of those involved in case there is some question about that or in case there are some people who can’t quite come to grips with the enormity of what is going on, no matter how much or how little organization may be exist behind the machinations.

For those who may initially disbelieve this and wonder just how the word gets out on such a grand plot, please remember how word gets out on just about every such “conspiracy” or other “secret” effort–someone almost always runs his mouth. People can’t keep their mouths shut–at least not for very long.

It’s human nature. The bigger the potential gain, the bigger the temptation to spill the beans to someone and brag about it. Most of us hear such talk all the time. Usually it’s from people like us who are not part of the rich and powerful ruling class. We may think it’s a clever idea–regardless of its dubious legal or moral character–but we really do not consider it as anything other than idle talk. When, on the other hand, such talk is heard from very politically involved men with millions of dollars at their disposal, then there is some cause to take it a bit more seriously.

I’ve been through the process of initial disbelief myself–and was justified considering what I was told. A member of one of the many campaign staffs in the state told me not long after the primaries that there was “a picture” that was incriminating to the degree that there could be no doubt of Nikki Haley’s guilt. He had not seen it but the person who had made this claim to him supposedly had.

The stated intent of the people with access to this alleged picture was to wait until after Nikki Haley is elected governor, present the evidence, and then expect her to resign. There is some reason for this expectation since Nikki Haley herself laid down the gauntlet on WVOC with host Keven Cohen when she stated that, sure, if evidence were presented that she had lied about this matter, she’d resign. It was an easy thing to promise for an innocent person but when access to billions of tax payer dollars is at stake, innocence or guilt becomes irrelevant to some people.

Once the presumed winner of the upcoming Lt. Governor’s race, Ken Ard, takes office, the usual crowd of big government Republicans and Democrats are free to bring down Nikki and put their establishment man–and therefore themselves–in control of the Budget & Control Board.

In its original incarnation, the idea that an authentic photograph was going to be released I found to be nonsensical. I dismissed it immediately because the story depended on one fact that I could not get my mind wrapped around: the existence of an actual incriminating photograph. Is there anyone out there who truly believes that a member of the scandal class would not have already cashed in such an item at the peak of the “market” that occurred back during the primaries?

Logic would dictate that the best shot to take in order to prevent a reform governor from getting in is during the primaries. Since she was running against three, business-as-usual establishment candidates, operatives would have used that explosive ammunition then–if it had existed. Such a photograph would have certainly been used by now. In political campaigns, you use what you have when you have it and it’s worth something. At this point, anything that pops up has got to be viewed with a great deal of skepticism as to authenticity just due to the timing if not common sense and decency.

The plan that the alleged plotters now have of faking photographs and/or a video to use against Nikki, however, makes much more sense in this day and age proliferating with camera phones of varying quality of photos and videos. The sensational aspect of the story involving the faked video has been denigrated by some critics as being “laughable” and otherwise hard to believe. [Speight has updated his site with this link to a story involving a pornographic video being made that purports to portray a celebrity.] The idea that someone would go to the trouble to hire an Indian “adult movie” actress to fake a video is hard to believe. That reaction is to be expected according to human psychology.

Now, where the perpetrators truly have the upper hand is that typically people also want to believe the evidence that is presented before their eyes. People don’t want to think that they can be so easily fooled. The times, they are achangin’ but still, today, a video coupled with the disbelief that something like this could/would be faked might convince many people to believe it is true no matter what later conflicting evidence or admissions are submitted.

It takes a lot to break through that mental barrier still today. In our parents and grandparents day, if they read it in print, it happened. Today we’re struggling to some degree, depending on the generation one belongs to, with determining which video footage you see is real and which video footage is faked with assistance from modern computer technology.

Regarding the establishment taking out an uncooperative elected official, this has all happened before–not in exact detail but in the essential mechanics and the corrupt outcome. When Mark Sanford was re-elected to a second term in 2006, Thomas Ravenel was elected to State Treasurer. Ravenel was generally seen to be a reform candidate and was hoped to team up with Sanford and Ekstrom to control the Budget & Control Board. Ravenel had one outstanding characteristic, however, that his establishment promoters really admired: he was a drug addict. The establishment machine cashed its chip in within a mere six months of Ravenel taking office.

With a very convenient opening then being quickly filled by one of their own, State Representative Converse Chellis, a very arrogant establishment man took office. What is funny is that with the power of his incumbency, Chellis might have easily won re-election. Unfortunately for him, his sense of entitlement and royal treatment of himself while in office turned out to be his Achilles heel. Since then, his elitist attitude has taken quite a beating when he was brutally defeated by a determined reformer, Curtis Loftis, who simply repeated the facts of Chellis’ term of office to bring him down. The establishment did not come close to stopping Loftis despite their throwing the book of dirty tricks at him and plastering the airwaves with false accusations of his having broken the law.

This time around, Nikki Haley was seen by the establishment as the weak link. Gov. Sanford–and Bill Clinton for that matter–got into a lot more trouble for lying about their affairs than the affairs themselves–and there was actual, objectively verifiable evidence in both those cases. In Haley’s case, there seems to be a clearly misogynist element in the picking and choosing of the target and method of destruction. I pray that ugly element is not an essential personality trait of her attackers but so far it is difficult to give them the benefit of a doubt on that matter.

Despite the inevitable dismissals by her critics, the whole move to bring down Nikki Haley is not so much of a “conspiracy.” In reality, it consists of what many such widespread efforts consist of: many people with the same general goals coming together and cooperating on something here or something there when it is mutually beneficial. It’s kind of like the Democrat Party in that respect. Right now there is a coalition of Democrats and establishment Republicans–as well as the occasional self-interested hangers-on–coming together to tear down and then later try to force from office a reform candidate that could, potentially, destroy man of the mechanisms of institutionalized corruption in this state.

Outright, large, organized and truly secret conspiracies are rare–even if their actors can keep their big mouths shut. Due to the selfish motives of many and varied political candidates and special interests, it is rare that they’ll risk themselves in any common endeavor unless the rewards for them individually were significant enough to justify it. That is a self-limiting characteristic of such plots preventing their being overly organized–if capable of being organized at all.

That the effort exists is undeniable, however. The evidence of that is in our faces. All Charlie Speight and now others are adding to the argument is the true why and the newly discovered wherefore (how) of the effort of some of the people behind the smears.

A few of the proponents of this bandwagon smear attempt are joining in and cooperating to further hurt Nikki Haley just before the election. Their goal, as has been put forth by the sources referred to in the article by Speight, is not to defeat her, though that is certainly the hope of many supporters of her opponent. They really only want to hurt her further in order to kill any perception of a mandate for reform that a huge margin of victory might convey. A single digit percentage win for them is good. A double digit percentage win makes her tougher to get rid of.

True reform in this state is the death knell for corporate welfare corruption as usual. And that realization starts to connect the dots for those who are wondering about what the motives could possibly be for those like Cyndi Mosteller and David Woodard who claim to be sacrificing so much to pursue the “truth” and otherwise acting for the “good” of the people of this state. Fat chance of that being anywhere remotely near the real truth of the matter.

That leads us to discussing the 500 pound gorilla in the room that every one of Nikki’s opponents seems to be avoiding talk of:the Budget & Control Board. This relic of Reconstruction era thinking puts control of nearly all the spending in this state in the hands of five individuals. Described as “unique,” which it certainly is among the governments of the fifty states, this small group controls many billions of dollars in our disproportionately bloated state government.

The de facto ruling party of this state is neither Republican nor Democrat in reality. The true ruling party here is the “Big Government Party of South Carolina.” This de facto party is made up of members from both major parties who mainly work to appease special interests by engaging in favor factory politics and corporate welfare distributions–at the expense of the citizens of this state. The corporate welfare South Carolina state is currently working very smoothly. In a couple of months, however, things may start changing drastically for them.

Power consolidated in the B&CB means that if the General Assembly has, in addition to their two seats, control of at least one other on the board, there will be an unchecked flow of whatever money they can get to whomever they want. One major enabler of this is the inability to accurately track a lot of the expenditures and that is one reason transparency is such a big issue. Transparency is seen by many as the citizens’ retaliation against the institutionalized fraud, waste, and abuse of our state government.

The first step in defeating the vicious and venal politics of corruption in this state is to give the crooks in the legislature the biggest “in-you-face!” possible. That means electing Nikki Haley as the true reformer and then supporting a radical agenda of change that will put the hard working citizens of this state in charge of their government and their lives. We must, as individual citizens, stand up for what is right and break the back of corruption in this state. Now is the best opportunity that we’ve had in decades to get real and permanent change implemented.